


Fire & Water Equal Steam

by binarose



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-14 07:35:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28791819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/binarose/pseuds/binarose
Summary: A year has passed since that afternoon at the Jasmine Dragon. Aang is off who knows where, Mai left the palace for good, and Zuko and Katara work together each day, but can't seem to talk about what is actually on their minds.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ~another transfer from my FF.net account; this one has been heavily edited from the original, but the bones of the writing are still there. I was binarose on FF, work title was the same~  
> Katara is 17, Zuko is 18, the others ages aren't relevant just yet

Following Zuko's coronation, everyone had assembled at the Jasmine Dragon, and Aang had kissed Katara. Then, without a word, he ascended onto Appa and flew away.

Katara couldn’t find the energy to be upset; something had shifted, she honestly didn’t mind that Aang had gone, the young boy known to be as flighty as his home element, and she found her attentions drawn elsewhere.

To the brooding golden eyed new Fire Lord.

_One Year Later_

"Katara?" came a questioning voice from the edge of the garden.

The water tribe girl looked up from her spot by the pond, and glanced around, searching for whoever had come looking for her.

Leaning against the stone archway, settled beneath the slowly setting sun, stood the Fire Lord, in his royal regalia, which he was slowly removing and dropping onto the floor. Katara willed the rush of blood to her cheeks to go away.

Zuko, now dressed only in the simple red tunic and trousers that he wore under his official business robes, strode towards his best friend.

That is what Katara had become; the best friend of the Fire Lord. She was his confidante, his advisor, and one of the few in the world who knew his deepest secrets. Since he and Mai had broken up again, for good it appeared, a month after the return from Ba Sing Se, Katara and Zuko has reached a very amicably comfortability and Katara had easily settled into a routine of blushing and avoiding awkward conversation topics at all costs. 

Her role as Water Tribe representative to the Fire Nation meant that most of their talks were about politics, except in the quiet private moments they shared, usually in the dark of night when a full moon shone, and they would relive the nightmares that plagued them together.

Zuko reached where she sat and looked down at his friend with questioning eyes; “Can I join you?” he asked, as he closed the final few feet between them.

Katara nodded slightly and waved a hand aimlessly through the empty space next to her, before returning her gaze to the turtleducks. She became hyper-aware of his warm and inviting arms brushing against hers as he lowered onto the grass.

After Aang had left her alone on the Jasmine Dragon balcony, and Katara had returned inside to their friends, she could clearly see Mai and Zuko curled into each other. It had felt as if she had been hit by a rock in the chest. Toph had come to her aid when she felt Katara’s heart quicken; before they had all departed Ba Sing Se, Katara had talked it out with Toph and Suki, her sisters for all intents and purposes, and realised she felt more than friendship and gratitude towards Zuko. 

A years’ worth of immersion therapy, unfettered access to him and regular letters out to her Earth Kingdom friends had not changed that. But 11 months down the line since Mai had last left the Palace, Katara argued to Suki and Toph regularly that he obviously didn’t feel the same.

And Katara had made her peace with that, honestly. She would rather have Zuko nearby as a friend, than not have him at all. 

She steadied her gaze out at the mother turtleduck leading her young into the bushes for the night; “How come you left the dinner early?” she heard herself say, knowing what the reponse would be.

True to that thought came the reply, “I could ask you the same thing,” said Zuko, before he continued, “You know I am more liable to set fire to things when I don’t have your calming presence around. They continued with that drivel about marrying someone and making heirs as soon as possible blah-blah-blah.”

He nudged her shoulder with his own, and she met his eyes with a small smile.

“I-I didn’t feel well. Too stuffy in there.”

“And that was just the company,” he let out a puff of air before finding wide eyes staring at him in feigned shock, “Present company excluded of course!”

He blushed hard before he stretched his arms behind his head and lay back on the soft grass, closing his eyes and regulating his breathing. Zuko felt Katara shift in her seated position awkwardly and opened his good eye up to glance at her again. Her face looked sad;

“Everything okay Katara?”

She wouldn’t look at him when she replied, “Nothing, I-I just need to relax before everyone arrives in the morning, it’s going to be a long day before the ball and it’s been so long since we’ve seen anyone else.”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine, you must be excited to have someone other than me to talk to.” Zuko let out a small laugh, that didn’t get reciprocated. Opening his eyes again, he saw her face tilted to the sky as if she was asking the almost risen moon for something, “Hey? Are you worried about seeing Aang?”

Katara looked down at the Fire Lord, hoping the creeping darkness of night would conceal the small tears forming in her eyes, “Yes-yes, that must be it. Aang. Long year. Anyway-” she stood abruptly and wiped her face quickly, “I’m going to get an early night. Goodnight Zuko.”

And with that, she swept out of the garden quickly, as if the wind itself had taken her. Zuko knitted his brow as he sat back up, and looked wistfully in the direction she had disappeared.


	2. Chapter 2

Katara hurried through the corridors, skidding to a stop outside her room. She straightened her dinner dress, nodded to her guards, who she only put up with on the insistence of Zuko, and went through the door to her lounge room.

When Katara had made the move to the Fire Nation permanent to serve as representative for her people, after much deliberation with her Grandmother and Father, Zuko had insisted she move into the Palace. “There’s more than enough space for you,” he had argued when she tried to dissuade him; her rebuttal had boiled down to splutters and indignant looks.  
So, she now had a room, no, a suite, at the Fire Nation royal palace.

The palace was traditionally decorated in shades of red and gold, but on one of her first days living there, Katara had repainted the balustrades on her balcony and the skirting boards in a soft blue, and hung Water Tribe beadwork and tapestries throughout her rooms. 

Of course, she still got homesick at times, but Katara could combat this slightly by bending some ice and sitting in the cold for a little bit of time. It helped, sometimes.  
Katara had just flopped down on the sofa in her lounge, which she had thrown pelts and blankets over to make it soft and comforting, when a knock came at the door and a small face popped around it;

"Master Katara?"

Katara turned her head to one side, and saw her youngest maid (yes, she had multiple maids, another insistence from Zuko) Kannitha. She pulled herself into a more dignified seated position, instead of the face plant she had hoped to continue, and gestured for the younger girl to come in.

Kannitha approached the sofa, stopping short to consider Katara,

“Are you okay miss? Your face is red and sort of, eh, blotchy?”

If Katara could have blushed harder under the blush that remained from her conversation with Zuko, she would’ve.

“Y-yes, no, yeah, I-I’m fine, just warm. You know, the Fire Nation is much warmer than…” Katara trailed off as she realised the ridiculousness of her lie. Of course Kannitha knew the Fire Nation was warmer than the other nations, and for Spirits sake, Katara had been here a year, she was acclimatised, she had not thought this through.

Kannitha smiled slightly, “Of course miss. Would you like the remainder of your dinner to be brought up?”

Katara was grateful in part for the courtesy of the staff, and their respect in relation to the private lives of the residents of the palace. No one, not the footman she had passed as she had left the dinner with Zuko and the councilman in a hurry, not the maids she swept by on her way out of the garden, nor her guards, had mentioned a thing or glanced knowingly at her.

“No, I’m okay Kannitha, I think I’m just going to get an early night, tomorrow will be a long day.”

Kannitha nodded and turned to leave the room. Katara rose from the sofa, made her way to the bedroom and resumed her face planted position on the bed with a groan.

~~~~~

Zuko didn’t know what time he had left the garden, after contemplating over and over the conversations with the councilmen and the few words he got out of Katara.  
But the spirits did not care if Zuko had gone to bed late, the sun was rising and so must he.

He stretched wide and swung his legs off of the bed, hands swiping over his face as he did so. Once he had wiped the sleep from his eyes, he rose from the bed, opened the doors wide that led to his balcony and felt the early morning sun wash over him in waves of energy. As was simply instinct now, Zuko fell into practicing the Dancing Dragon forms.

Once he was through, he dressed back into the simple tunic set he had left the garden in last night and began a slow walk to the dining room. When he was finally in the last corridor, Zuko could hear voices coming from the room before him. Voices of people he missed terribly, the voices of his friends. He quickened his pace;

“-I’m just saying, if there’s no cuisine from other nations, Sparky could cause an international incident,” “No sea prunes please!” “-there better be sea prunes!” “I’ll stick to the fruit pies Twinkle Toes has brought!” “As long as there is no cactus juice, that really would cause an international incident.”

Zuko shook his head and chuckled lightly as he heard the conversation drifting towards him.

He heard a chair scrape back on the tiled floor before he heard the youngest of his friends quiet the others;

“Shh, Sparky is coming!”

Zuko reached the door and pushed it open to see the faces of his friends from around the globe, finally gathered again together.

Sokka and Suki beamed at him from seated positions, cuddled close into each other. Aang’s smile overtook his face, which had finally lost that last little bit of puppy fat; Zuko wondered if Aang had surpassed him in height finally. Toph had released her brace on the floor and sauntered over to him,

**WHACK.**

“I’ve missed you Sparky,” Toph said in an uncharacteristic show of emotion, before hugging him tightly around the middle. Zuko awkwardly returned the hug while trying to rub the spot on his left shoulder where she had punched him.

The other friends leapt from their spots around the table and joined the hug, essentially trapping Zuko in the middle of the 4 of them. 

Sokka was the first to release the Fire Lord; “Seen as she isn’t here, I guess my sister is sleeping in?”

Zuko shrugged in as casual a fashion as he could manage as the circle of friends widened out again, “Sunrise isn’t usually her thing.”

“Thought it might be her thing by now – OW, Suki!” Toph mumbled until she was elbowed by the warrior next to her.

Zuko’s eyes darted to Aang.

~~~~~

The early (was it still considered early at 9am?) morning sunshine cruelly filtered through the curtains onto Katara’s face.  
She rolled over to put off the inevitable day ahead of her for just a little longer, but she was awake and so was her mind, mulling over the events of last night again and again.

_“Fire Lord Zuko, you have been on the throne for a year…” “A year without a Fire Lady by your side!” “Unheard of!” “Sozin was married before he took the throne!” “Your uncle was even born to Azulon before Sozin passed on, married for a healthy amount of time!” “Your father was…”_

**“Do not mention my father!”**

Zuko’s words shortly before Katara had left the table echoed in her mind and rattled her bones. She knew he was still plagued by nightmares about his father, the Agni Kai that had marked him, the lightning he had redirected below the city, the scorched earth Ozai had left behind before Aang subdued him. So, Katara knew it was not a smart move on the part of the councillors to bring him up in a discussion where they were trying to persuade him. She frowned as she realised it was more likely to dissuade him from marrying anyone ever.

Katara sighed and rose out of the bed, knowing she would not get anymore sleep and lying in the bed was a fruitless exercise now. Once stood, she shook from her head to her toes, as if to rid herself of the spirits and conversations circling her thoughts.

Making her way to bathroom, she called some water to her fingertips. She concentrated and rubbed her temples with glowing fingers, easing the small headache that threatened to form. There was no time for that today.

After washing and dressing quickly in a red set of clothing reminiscent of the outfit she wore when they had hidden in plain sight, Katara sped with purpose towards the dining room, regretting rejecting Kannitha’s offer to finish her dinner alone last night.

Reaching the familiar doors of her destination, she went to push them open when the door swung away from her and a face she knew but a foot higher than she was expecting was suddenly looking at her.

“Oops, sorr – Katara! Hey, hi.” came the awkward voice of Aang.


End file.
